NHS cancer cash scandal

Millions of pounds meant for cancer sufferers is being siphoned off to meet the debts of health authority trusts, it is revealed today.

MPs from all parties condemn the scandal which they say makes a mockery of government pledges to help victims. One leading specialist said: "The cheque appears to have got lost in the post."

Senior doctors complain that the bulk of £190million promised for cancer research, revealed with fanfares by Health Secretary Alan Milburn and fellow ministers, is being "purloined" for other purposes.

In west London a total of £12 million was pledged for the current year - only £3.9 million has reached its destination.

Cancer professionals, powerfully backed today by MPs, pin the blame on Mr Milburn and Chancellor Gordon Brown.

An all-party committee of MPs condemns the Government, declaring: "We consider it dissembling to allocate funding to cancer care, with great publicity, without taking even the simplest precaution to ensure that it reaches the intended areas."

The charge, supported by a chorus of complaints from cancer specialists, threatens to revive damaging accusations that the Government is yet again giving pledges but failing to deliver.

Professor Gordon McVie told the committee: "I think there is still some mystery about where some of the money is and whether the cheque got lost in the post or whether it has been absorbed like creosote into the fence post of the administration of the Health Service."

Professor McVie said he believed that seven eighths of the cash promised had yet to be delivered. The Government itself acknowledges there was a problem.

Professor Mike Richards, Mr Blair's "cancer czar", told the committee: "I have heard a lot of concerns from around the country that the money is not getting through." He promised that the arrangements for next year would be "a lot stronger".

The research money was supposed to be available under the Cancer Plan announced by Tony Blair and Mr Milburn at Labour's conference in 2000. The Prime Minister pledged that helping cancer victims would be a top priority.

Professor James Malpas, former head of oncology at Bart's Hospital, in evidence to the committee, says: "Although more money has been allocated to cancer, it is not reaching the clinic. The perception is that it is being purloined by the trusts to reduce their debt."

Edward Newlands, professor of cancer medicine at the Hammersmith Hospital, says in the report: "There are clearly major problems in terms of delivering the money."

Another specialist, Dr Raj Chopra, senior lecturer at the Christie Hospital, said that some aspects of the Cancer Plan are "excellent" but that the Government should have put in place key personnel and proper structures before releasing large sums of money.

The Commons Science and Technology Committee, which produced today's report, has a Labour majority and is headed by Dr Ian Gibson, a respected biologist. The report voices "serious concern at the apparent ease with which trusts can re-deploy funds if they choose".